D&D 5E When -5/+10 starts becoming Very Reliable?

The Great Weapon Master feat and Sharpshooter feat seem to be generally regarded as OP for what they are. In theory the -5 part of the feat means you miss a bit to trade off the extra damage. Her is the current party we have.

Barbarian (beast one). Has GWM
Diviner Wizard
Monk (way of the fist)
Cleric (nature)
Bard (Valor) archer/sharpshooter.

And yesterday we had a Battlemaster fighter and next week we have another player coming in. The cleric has discovered she s better off casting bless in a level 3 slot as it will probably deal more damage than say spirit guardian in this party.

Barbarian often has advantage via class abilities or Monk knocking crap prone. Faerie fire sometimes gets used along with bless, bard dice etc. Yesterday the Barbarian got 4 attacks a round at level 5 (2+haste+battlemaster) with all of them hitting at -5 for something like 74-78 damage which was more than the rest of the party put together. Ways to offset the -5 part.

Advantage granting (various ways to get it)
Bard Dice
Portend
Bless

Bless is going up in almost every fight the only thing changing is how many people get it. Even without the -5/+10 feats its still great on the Monk for example. The bard misses a bit more with the sharpshooter feat but even he is hitting fairly reliably with it. The Barbarian is hitting more often than not as well and if we have AC 18-20 opponents they usually get knocked prone or bard dice get assigned to the barbarian. Functionally she has advantage to hit more often than not+bless and a bard dice if its critical.

Monk also has +8+1d4 to hit (+9 with +1 short sword) with a DC 15 dex save or be knocked prone effect when using flurry of blows. Barbarian seems to take half damage from everything except psychic damage and healing is not a major problem in this party anyway (Bard, cleric, wizard has healer feat).

Its not like we planned this party out. New player wanted a valor bard, we took the monk and barbarian because we had never seen one before in 5E. Wizard just recently hit level 5, before then he was often near the front lines using the help action and healer feat instead of casting an underwhelming firebolt. Just seemed to happen. Monk knocks someone prone or stuns it and in comes the barbarian or an action surge.

TLDL
The -5 part of SS/GMW in this party is comically easy to offset.

It is. I routinely use it on my great-weapon Devotion Paladin. Shield of Faith as a bonus, Holy Weapon (or whatever its called) to give me +Chamod to attack rolls (and a free torch!). Even if my Chamod isn't max, taking a -1 or -2 to all attack rolls while still essentially wielding a shield and getting +10 to damage is just hands-down a no brainer choice.

Hmmm....

I'm not saying that you are wrong, but there is a "portion" of your argument missing here, and I would be pretty interested in hearing how it plays out when that portion is explored.

So take Joe the Barbarian with GWM. He *can* use it to have -5 to hit, + 10 to damage. You've detailed 2 scenarios here when in reality there are four (one of which doesn't matter, which is your argument)

1: Joe does a normal attack

vs

2: Joe does a GWM attack with a bonus that offsets the - 5. This is *clearly* better than scenario 1

vs

3: Joe does a GWM attack but with not bonus, ie he's suffering the -5 penalty in full. You claim that this never happens in your party. I'm going to believe you and declare this one moot.

BUT what about this?

4: Joe does a normal attack with bonuses! (bless, advantage whatever). He will attack for less damage, but hit more often!

So when detailing your argument, it's not just 1 vs 2 that matters, it's 2 vs 4.

If Joe has 18 strength, is level 5 and had a + 1 great sword, his average damage (when raging) is 4 + 7 + 1 + 2 = 14. His to-hit number is 4 + 3 + 1 or +8. this is the baseline for scenario 1

If you are fighting an AC 19 foe, that means you will hit 50% of the time. (So the effective damage is 7)

If you are in scenario 3, you will do 24 points of damage but hit about 25% of the time - this is a bad deal, you've reduced your chances of hitting by half and you haven't even doubled your damage (so 24/4 =6). But as you say, this almost never happens.

If you are in scenario 2, you still have the same effective + to hit and are now doing 24 points of damage (effective 12). Huzza!

BUT if you are in scenario 4, you now have an effective + 13 to hit. You will hit 75% of the time! 14*.75 = 10.5

So yes, scenario 3 is better than scenario 4... but not as much as you think. The math changes of course depending on the circumstances. I suspect GWM works better vs lower AC monsters. But then, if you are fighting little minions (say goblins), you're just over-killing them anyway.

Noooooo, not again. Zard, can't you dig up one of the old threads with all the math proving your point?

Celtavian said:

Noooooo, not again. Zard, can't you dig up one of the old threads with all the math proving your point?

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The math varies though. For example the Monk ability has a dex save so it depends on what you are fighting. Overall though I think this party composition is more of a guideline.

You have a group of players who work well with each other as a team. I don't mean the PCs, just the players themselves. I've never known a player of a wizard who sacrifices their action to use the help action for five levels. It's effective damage-wise, but it means that player is sacrificing zapping something - which most players would prefer even if it does less damage through the indirect benefit of the help action.

I played a bard who used fairy fire and bardic inspiration and bless and the help action, and I had a blast doing it. But it takes a certain personality to do that, and not everyone will enjoy it.

Zardnaar said:

The Great Weapon Master feat and Sharpshooter feat seem to be generally regarded as OP for what they are.

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No, that's wrong. Both in that the folk regarding them as OP are not representative of a large enough portion of the gaming populace to be considered the "general" opinion, and in that the feats are not at all over-powered.

Zardnaar said:

The math varies though. For example the Monk ability has a dex save so it depends on what you are fighting. Overall though I think this party composition is more of a guideline.

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Didn't the math with bless and advantage against varying ACs get worked out showing that it was effective against very high ACs?

Zardnaar said:

The math varies though. For example the Monk ability has a dex save so it depends on what you are fighting. Overall though I think this party composition is more of a guideline.

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But we don't need a thread detailing the math for each scenario possible.

If you think -5/+10 is OP? Just CHANGE IT already & be done with it. How about a simple -5/+5?

Havent we had this thread before? Yes, the -5/+10 is broken and should simply be removed from the game (imo).